


midnight kiss

by marchh



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Cinderella - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, True Love's Kiss, an inexplicable ball, cries, easy resolutions, excessive tears, not a fairy tale au despite that - it's more canon adjacent, they save each other, this is schmaltzy as all hell istg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22994659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchh/pseuds/marchh
Summary: Based loosely on Ep 2x17 "Into the Woods" - a schmaltzy gobblepot Cinderella AU of sortsMany liberties are taken with the architecture of Wayne Manor, such as the addition of a ballroom with a balcony.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im warning you now it's schmaltz. it's so ridiculous im nervous to post it but how can it not be ridiculous when it's nicewald

Once there was a gentleman who met the love of his life, and together the couple beget a beautiful child. But the woman, Gertrude, had been just a lowly maid, and thus the young man’s parents would not allow them to wed. 

Before the young heir Elijah van Dahl realized his beloved was with child, she was sent away, never to be seen again. He wept for her, heart broken, and was forced into a marriage with another lady of his station. 

Grace had already been wed once, widowed once, and was a mother of two: a son, Charles, and a daughter, Sasha.

Where Elijah was sentimental and trusting, Grace was cunning and calculating, and endeavored to teach her children to be the same. Alas, they inherited her striking features, but almost none of her striking wits.

Together, their perfect family resided in the secluded van Dahl estate on the far edge of Gotham city. 

It would not be for another 30 years that Elijah, health waning, would hear news about his beloved Gertrude.

Though Elijah had never forgotten his first love, he obeyed his parents’ wishes and never sought her out again. Alas he would only find her again in death, but with the sorrowful news came a great boon: at her grave, Elijah finally met the son he hadn’t known he’d fathered. A family was reunited at last.

☂️

Oswald Cobblepot sobbed pitifully, and he could hardly see the funeral proceedings taking place before him as his vision blurred with his unending hot tears. He bit at his lip, attempting furiously to rein in the heaving, wrenching sobs of his mourning, because it was evident from the hiss that Grace so hated how undignified he was appearing. But Oswald could not help it.

So soon after losing his dear, dear mother, he lost his father too. His father, who he had been united with by fate only days ago. The sweet, wise man who had accepted Oswald for all he was and had shown him unconditional love from the moment they met at his mother’s grave. They had enjoyed such precious little time before he, too, was so violently taken away from him. 

Oswald’s heart broke into tiny, shattered pieces as he watched complete strangers - people his father must have known, who he would now never be able to introduce - pay their respects to his cold, lifeless body resting in his coffin. 

“ Father, I only knew you a short time,” he composed himself well enough to say, “But you came to me when I was alone in this cold, dark world.”

“You gave me a family. I’ll never forget you as long as I -” Oswald burst into fresh tears again, unable to finish his goodbyes. 

Oswald looked to the rest of his newfound family, who were so composed, brave-faced as they handled this newfound tragedy. And they had known Father for so many more years than he! 

But Oswald could not help such sentimentality. Oswald Cobblepot van Dahl, wh o at the time was characterized by an unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, far from the fearsome creature he had been before his recent and unfortunate stay at the Arkham Asylum, was the last living direct descendent of the van Dahl bloodline. 

Though he had Grace, and Charles, and Sasha to call family too, he could not help but feel all alone in the world, adrift in his churning sea of emotions as if a single tide would push him over into the darkness his father had warned him of.

“Oswald, as painful as this is, we need to talk practicalities,” Grace said, turning a kind smile to him. Oswald stares back, wide and teary eyed. 

“Can I call you a cab, or will you take the bus?”

A moment passed, but he could not comprehend.

“I don’t understand,” Oswald said. 

“Well, you’re not returning to the house with us.”

Oswald’s mouth opened and closed like a dry-drowning fish. 

“But where shall I go?” Panic arose, twining with his grief. “I have nowhere to go.”

“Oswald, I’m so happy that you and your father reconnected, but he left the house and the estate to me. And, I’m simply not comfortable sleeping under the same roof as a notorious murder.”

“But I’m not like that anymore!” Fresh tears sprung into Oswald’s eyes; he, who could not even hurt a fly. It pained him to be thought of so, but not as much as the pain of loss of his parents.

So Oswald begged for mercy, charity, and pity. He pleaded with his step mother and siblings, if only they would take him in. He would cook, he would clean, he would sweep, he would scrub, sew, whatever was needed. He would do anything if only they would permit him to live under the same roof - it was what Father would have wanted.

“Well,” Grace said with a huff, turning to eye her beautiful children. “We do need help around the house.”

“I’ll do anything!” Oswald said. 

Grace smiled.

☂️

No sooner had the funeral ended did Grace begin to show her true colors. Oswald traded in his fine-tailored suits for a cinder maid’s apron and broom, and was left to scour and scrub and labor away while his siblings kicked up their feet and called upon him to do even the most menial of chores.

They had laid off all of the house’s staff, leaving just poor Oswald to tend to all of their whims and needs.

“Oswald.” Grace rang a bell from her seat at the head of the table, and Oswald hurried in from the kitchen where he had sat tucked away while his step family supped, to see what it was she needed.

“There is a water stain on this glass,” Grace said with disdain, holding up the crystal goblet of half-drunk wine to the candlelight so Oswald could see for himself.

“Oh!” Oswald said, unsure as to why Grace was so concerned, but earnest in his eagerness to remedy his mistakes all the same. “I can get you another one immediately.” 

“See that you do,” Grace said, handing over her glass. But before Oswald was able to grasp the stem, she dropped it, spilling rich burgundy red wine all over the ivory tablecloth.

“I apologize!” Oswald stammered, dabbing at the cloth with his apron as she glared. Sasha snickered, and Charles smirked.

Oswald was still torn between cleaning it and rushing off to fetch Grace another glass when she threw her napkin onto the table and proclaimed she could not eat another bite of the sorry meal he prepared. She demanded he prepare a roast for tomorrow’s dinner, chastised him for ruining her appetite, and then his siblings rose to leave along with Grace too, leaving Oswald alone to clean up the half-touched meals he had slaved away in the hot kitchen for.

In the kitchen, which had become Oswald’s de facto room after he had been evicted from the bedroom Grace said was reserved for guests, not help, Oswald sniffed as he scraped the uneaten food off the plates. He needed to soak the stain out of the tablecloth, and eat the remaining soup for his own meal, but the half-finished plates from his siblings he could feed to the dog so he would not have to go hungry as well.

Oswald thanked his lucky stars that in the kitchen at least, unlike the cellars, there was the old stove to keep him warm.

While his siblings slept in their feather beds, atop silk sheets and under down comforters, Oswald huddled on his makeshift cot, and dreamt of a happy home.

☂️

Oswald shuffled past the parlor, arms full, and nearly dropped his armful of sheets to be laundered as he saw the beautiful brocade draped across Charles in the mirror.

“Oh, that is such a lovely pattern!” Oswald couldn’t help but say, admiring the tailor’s eye as the man presented an array of fabrics for the van Dahl’s to choose from. Just a few days ago - a few days before the funeral, Oswald remembered with a new wave of sadness - his father had had him fitted for a wonderful suit.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Grace asked, eyeing the laundry in Oswald’s arms from her comfortable position on the sofa where she had been surveying her childrens’ fittings. Sasha had on a deep red gown with what looked like a diamond studded bodice, and was looking in the mirror to see whether the back plunged as low as she liked, while Charles swapped out his waistcoat for a cummerbund and looked to his mother for approval.

“We wouldn’t want to keep you from your  _ chores _ ,” Grace added, to move Oswald along.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Oswald said, and made to cross the room and be on his way. But he couldn’t. His feet stayed rooted to the spot as he looked on in awe, and want. 

“May I ask what the occasion is?” Oswald asked with put-upon cheer in his voice. He himself was still mourning, but if the family was to attend some important event, he wanted to look his best for it too. 

“You may not,” Grace said, interrupted by her son who tells Oswald with some boredom that “We’re going to a ball.”

“A ball!” Oswald turns to Charles. He didn’t have anything suitable for a  _ ball _ , and it looked like the siblings had already had custom suits and dresses designed for them weeks ago. He would have to make do with his one black suit, and surely his father wouldn’t mind if he made use of some of his accessories. 

Oh, a ball. A gathering of fine folk and fantasies would be such a welcome reprieve from Oswald’s dreary day-to-day, where every task and chore reminded him of what he had lost.

“Oh, I would love to go to a ball,” he said wistfully, garnering a sympathetic look from the silent tailor.

To his surprise, Grace laughed, loud and sharp. A moment later, Sasha joined in, and then Charles too with some confusion.

“Oh you won’t be going to the ball,” Grace said with mean glee. 

Oswald gasped. “Why not?”

“You have nothing suitable to wear,” she said with a pointed look at his sad sorry apron. 

“Surely father would not mind if I borrowed a few things…”

“You have your chores.”

“I will finish!”

Grace gave pause, and then gave Oswald a considering look.

“Really? It is a masked ball, held tonight, at the Wayne Manor. Before you are to even think of setting foot outside the house, you must finish laundering the sheets you have in hand, and then the curtains of each of our bedrooms, and polish the silver, dust and sweep every room, prepare our lunch, fix the creaky door of that old library, and scrub the floors.”

Oswald opened and closed his mouth, trying to think whether he would be able to do it all in time. Surely the list of things to do had grown? But he mustn't complain, because complaining is bad-

“And of course you must finish, because the only reason you are still living with us, off of our generosity, is because you have taken on the housework,” Grace reminded him.

“Of- of course!” Oswald nodded emphatically. He would do it all, he would!

“Hm,” Grace said, seeming satisfied. “And you will not step out of the house until all of it is done. All of it, and not a minute before.”

So Oswald rushed off to complete his tasks.

☂️

Oswald dabbed at his temples, sweating from the exertion of flitting through the house all day on his feet trying to complete his chores. But he had done it. He cleaned the house top to bottom and now all that was left was to wash off the sweat and press his suit and oh, he would be in time for the ball!

But when he emerged from the bath, wrapped in a fluffy towel robe, he found Charles and Sasha standing in the guest bedroom picking at the clothes he had laid out.

“How tacky!” Sasha exclaimed, picking up his suit jacket with the tips of her fingers in that hand that wasn’t holding a drink, and flinging it so it slipped off the bed and crumpled onto the floor.

Charles looked Oswald up and down, and said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot, “You do know that this is a  _ masked ball, _ don’t you?”

“Oh, I haven’t got a mask,” Oswald said in a small voice, looking back and forth at the siblings who were making a mess of his things.

“What  _ smells?” _ Sasha asked, turning around and sniffing the air until her eyes landed on Oswald. She gave him a look that said the bath had certainly done him no favors, and then wrinkled her nose at the clothes.

“Charles, he can’t possibly wear such smelly clothes to the ball.”

“Oh, no, never.”

And with that, she doused the crisp white shirt with a bottle of cologne, and snorted in a poor attempt to stifle a laugh. Charles didn’t even try, though he coughed at the strong smell. Oswald could hardly hear their terrible words as he took in their flippantly terrible deeds, and what did it matter what their reasoning was, when Sasha had dropped her red wine goblet onto the pile of clothes, staining the fabrics so that he would never be able to get them ready before the ball.

He watched as they sashayed out of the room, down the stairs, and met Grace at the door where they took their leave in their fancy hired car. Leaving Oswald all alone in the house, with a fresh set of sheets to launder and his suit to de-stain.

He wept.

An hour later, just as Oswald was coming around to the idea of a night alone, he heard the grand clock in the foyer chime, and an eerie wave washed over Oswald with a chill. Something rose up in him that the therapy had him tamping back down, and Oswald quickly hung up the last of the sheets to dry so he could sit down with a huff. 

His leg ached, and his head hurt from the memories of his time at Arkham. He had no wish to fight with Grace, or Sasha and Charles, and he was sure that if he was good to them, they would be good to him as well. Good people attract good things, wasn’t that what Hugo Strange had said?

He shouldn’t want this- this - he shouldn’t want to still defy them, and go to the ball.

Oswald looked to the clock on the wall.

“But I have time,” he said aloud, as if his own thoughts needed convincing. “Why shouldn’t I go to the ball?”

With trembling curiosity, Oswald pushed open the door to the master bedroom. Upon closer inspection, all of his father’s things had been cleared out already, and Grace’s own things filled the closet.

Oswald frowned, then trekked back downstairs to inspect those boxes Grace had slated for disposal. Indeed, his father’s things that Oswald hadn’t already taken into his possession - many in fine condition - were rolled up and stuffed into boxes to be tossed out. Oswald took the garments out to fold them nicely, and halfway through the second box found what he was looking for. A tasteful tux, and one that he might fit in. 

He hummed to himself as he steamed and pressed and primped and sewed away, now in high spirits as he had a plan to execute. 

By the time the grand clock chimed once more, Oswald was done. He smiled at his image in the mirror before him, and adjusted the mask he had tied over his eyes. He had had to sacrifice a favorite tie and one of the throw pillows to furnish the costume piece, but his eyes glimmered behind the mask and Oswald felt it was well worth it. 

A knock came at the door - and just in time. That must be Gabriel, with the car, even though Oswald had been so rude to cut ties abruptly, and still had reservations about relying on a known criminal, old friend that he was, for assistance. 

Oswald smiled at him as he pushed open the passenger door, and gave the outfit an odd once over but refrained from voicing judgement.

“I’ve got to pick you up by 12, okay? After that I have to get to another - er, you won’t want to hear about it.”

“No problem, Gabriel,” Oswald said. “And I must thank you again for doing me this great kindness.”

Gabe only hummed in assent, and put the car into drive. As they pulled out onto the road, he glanced over quickly at Oswald once again.

“You almost look like your old self again, huh.”

☂️

Jim groaned, coming back to wakefulness in what he realized was the dark, and not just his vision being shot after Nygma had electrocuted him. He heard the soft strains of a waltz coming from somewhere yonder, and silently moved to get up and better orient himself.

Relief flooded Jim as he remembered who he had come to after getting away from that psychopath - he was in the Wayne Manor, and upstairs in a guest room. He turned on a lamp on the nightstand and crossed the room, stopping at the door where a note waited for him on top of a stack of clothes draped neatly over a chair. 

Bruce had encouraged him to rest well, and apologized for being preoccupied, though Alfred had said there was nothing Bruce could do for him that was better than letting him sleep anyhow. He had come to the house, and promptly collapsed after insinuating he had been chased. A phone call to his old partner revealed Jim needed to lay low, and was not officially released from Blackgate but had escaped, and was close to finding the man who framed him but needed help. Bruce would happily provide it, though likely in the morning. He was encouraged to continue to rest, but if he so wanted, was free to join them below in the ballroom as well. It was a masked ball, and without law enforcement in attendance, so Jim should be able to move freely if he wished.

Jim folded the note back up and sighed, running a hand down his face. 

Fucking Ed Nygma, of all people. Jim supposed if he hadn’t been more preoccupied with more pressing matters he might have seen the signs - the peak nervousness at mention of Kristen Kringle, his mood swings, something. 

He couldn’t rest until he put that son of a bitch behind bars. And that, apparently, meant first going to a ball.

Jim eyed the suit bag and mask hanging over the chair, and toyed with the edge of his leather jacket and then quickly made up his mind. Off went his jacket, and his shirt. And his jeans. He huffed in amusement finding dress shoes under the chair as well, next to his dirt-covered boots. 

After fixing himself up in the guest room’s adjoining bathroom, Jim quietly snuck out into the dimly lit hall, following the sounds of the music, and found his way to a ballroom he did not realize Wayne Manor possessed. 

Being on the upper level of the west wing, Jim had the good fortune of being able to sneak into the procession from one of the little alcoves leading to discrete stairs in the corner of the ballroom floor. The party was in full swing, masked ladies and gentlemen fluttering and glittering as they spun and swayed with the music. But he’d spotted Bruce across the room, and his ever present butler just a few steps behind. Surely the boy had questions, and he didn’t want to just run out. He wanted to say his goodbyes at least, and thank him.

But Jim was waylaid, stopped short in his tracks, as the ballroom’s main doors opened, and a very familiar figure stepped in.

Oswald Cobblepot - he would recognize him anywhere, even masked, and through a crowd of dancing people. 

Jim stopped to watch, considering rushing to Bruce’s side if there was some plan hatched by the Penguin about to go down. But something in the man’s bearing gave him pause. He was smiling, but seemed genuinely pleased, even a bit in awe. There was a happy innocence to the Penguin, as if he was just delighted to be a nameless guest. It was oddly unlike him.

☂️

Oswald breathlessly took in the grandeur of the ball, the old world splendor embodied by its inhabitants. 

It was his only excuse for not watching where he was going, because the next moment he nearly tripped, and it took a second before he realized it was because a stranger had taken hold of his arm, and he nearly collided into the masked man as a result.

“Oh my apologies,” Oswald breathed, looking up into the eyes of this oddly familiar man, as if he had stepped out of a dream.

It was so magical a moment Oswald nearly didn’t register the fact that the man was, indeed, frowning at him. He looked quite concerned for Oswald, actually, and the two of them locked in a gaze meant then he quickly had to tug Oswald out of the way of oncoming, twirling dancers, and Oswald came crashing into his arms all too happily, taking it for an invitation to dance.

Which was how Jim Gordon found himself in a waltz. With a former mobster. 

Guilt crept upon him as he had a moment to appreciate the fact anew that he had not seen Oswald these months because the man had been locked in an asylum. In order to protect Jim. And obviously Jim could not have visited, for fear of incriminating himself in the eyes of the law and undoing all the noble suffering of Oswald’s deed. 

What then knocked him out of the stupor was when finally they had come to the center of the floor, surrounded by others waltzing, and Jim realized the two of them were barely swaying. Right, his leg. 

“Thank you for asking me to dance,” Oswald told him with a bashful tone.

“No I- what.” Jim took in those sparkling eyes again and was moved with unease, because the man before him looked and sounded the way only Oswald Cobblepot could, but the man before him - it wasn’t Oswald.

“It feels like a dream,” Oswald said, and oddly enough Jim felt inclined to agree.

“Oswald,” Jim said in a low voice. “What are you doing here?”

Oswald blinked up at him.

“Do you know me?”

If they weren’t already moving at a snail’s pace, Jim might have tripped them both, for how still he went. He had intended to shake him down, demand to know whether he had told Nygma that Jim was the one who killed Galavan, and why go through such lengths to put Jim behind bars when he had so many other chances to get rid of him, far more easily? But somehow he knew with certainty that Oswald’s ignorance was not a feint.

“What happened to you?” Jim asked in a low murmur, and Oswald flushed, because his mental history and past criminal deed was not something he had planned to share when he decided to go to a party tonight. 

He ducked his head, missing the look of horror that had passed Jim’s face, suddenly ashamed again of his past transgressions. Father’s forgiveness, after all, was but a rare instance. He could not hope for the same from this handsome stranger, who Oswald was now chagrined to realize might have worked with in a criminal capacity.

He rubbed at his temples, the familiar headache returning. So much of that past was a blur. It was just so horrible, and, and bloodied. In his worst moments, in the dead of night, he would close his eyes only to jolt back to wakefulness in seeing his beloved mother’s life seep out of her, right in front of him. Dead by his own hands.

Mrs. Peabody had said his inclination to block such memories was a coping mechanism. It was understandable.

She had also said that Oswald must be honest.

He mustered up a small smile. 

“Arkham, of course,” he said, sending a wave of deja vu over Jim. “But I am a changed man! I have reformed, renounced my criminal ways. And - and I have a certificate to prove it.”

“Certificate?” Even the wrinkle upon his brow was charming.

“Of sanity,” Oswald said with a nod. Of course, he couldn’t procure it right this moment, but he hoped the man would take his word for it, and not abandon him immediately now that they had no business to associate with together.

Instead, defying all possibility, he held Oswald even closer. 

And maybe it was the music, or maybe it was the masks, but for the better part of the next two hours they danced. They looped along the length of the ballroom floor and then again, and again, sometimes so slowly they seemed to be moving backwards, compared to the other dancers, but for two hours no one else existed in their little world.

Just the two of them.

Jim asked no more of his recent and traumatizing past, and Oswald did not demand to know the nature of their past acquaintance, instead looking upon it as a blessing that they were both willing to start anew. He spoke instead to Oswald of his love of the city, a little, despite its terrors and flaws. He wanted to help Gotham. And Oswald’s heart swelled in recognition of a kindred spirit, someone trying to turn a new leaf and do good in the world. 

And then the clock struck midnight, and the two both startled, turning to look in the direction of the gongs. 

“I- I have to go,” Oswald said with heavy regret, thinking Gabe must already be waiting outside with his car. Oh, if he didn’t leave now, he would be left behind, and have no way of getting back.

He turned his eyes back on Jim, who was looking at him with a sad smile, and opened his mouth as if to say something. He closed it, apparently having thought better of it, and instead took Oswald’s hand from his waist, held it in his own, and then bent down to kiss it, just once, softly.

“Goodbye, Oswald.”

He turned, leaving a stunned Oswald in his wake, only to be stopped short a moment later.

“Jim!” 

Jim spun around to stare in shock at Oswald who had covered his mouth in surprise at his own recognition.

“You- you were there. You  _ shot-” _

He silenced the man, covering his mouth with his hand now, and dragged him posthaste onto an open balcony, drawing the gauzy curtains behind him to give them some semblance of privacy.

The last thing he needed was for a public reveal of why he  _ really _ should have gone to Blackgate.

He looks down, expecting to see an angry Oswald just broken free of his - what, brainwashing? Instead, the wretched creature is in tears. 

“Oh, Jim,” Oswald wept. “I can’t believe I forgot you.”

So he...hadn’t broken free of the conditioning then. 

It made Jim want to ask what exactly really happened in Arkham, but in Oswald’s muddled state he didn’t think he would get a true picture of it. He reached out, gingerly, to help Oswald remove his mask, because it was getting in the way of his wiping at his eyes. But Oswald only caught his hand, and held it there, against his cheek. 

“I shouldn’t have let you take the fall,” Jim said in a gruff voice, so quietly the breeze of the night could have swept it away, because it was just like him to ruin a nice moment with grim reality. But Oswald just shook his head, familiar with Jim’s darker demons.

“It was the best course of action, after everything that had already happened,” Oswald said, sounding a bit more like himself, even with the tremor in his voice. “Lee-”

“We broke up,” Jim said in a small voice. He didn’t add that they’d lost the baby, but perhaps the grief was evident. “I don’t deserve the sort of happy ending-

“Gotham  _ needs _ you,” Oswald insisted, giving voice to what they had only implied out by the docks at dawn. The Penguin was already wanted for the murders of several mayoral candidates, arson, and who knows what else. Barnes wouldn’t have stopped his manhunt even if proof came out that he hadn’t shot Galavan. And Arkham, at the time, seemed a cakewalk compared to Blackgate for a sane man. How wrong they both were. 

“But Gotham needs you too,” Jim admitted. Oswald’s eyes widened at these hard-won words. For Jim, it too felt like a confession. Something he would not have, for the whole world, admitted even just weeks ago. This confession - this gift - Oswald felt compelled to give in return, and found himself reaching up to grasp Jim in his hands and pull him down for a kiss. On the lips this time, and unmistakably romantic. Jim’s hand rose to circle his wrist, and a moment later laid his other hand on Oswald’s back, as if he needed to bring him in still closer. 

“I need you,” Jim whispered against his lips. “I missed you. So much.”

When Oswald finally broke away, breathless, his eyes were shining despite his tears being long gone. 

“Jim,” he said, dizzy with it. “I’ve dreamt of this. Looking into your eyes, being in your arms. I’m so happy I could faint.”

Jim looked flustered, turning pink.

“Oswald, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do,” Oswald said, practiced in being patient with this obstinate man. 

In any case, Jim was saved from further discussion of feelings as two sets of footsteps stepped onto the balcony. He spun, maneuvering Oswald behind him and out of view, only to find Bruce and Alfred, and Selina dropping from the banister a moment later. 

“Detective!” Bruce ran to him with a hug, and as such startled Oswald into view. But Bruce only stared - such erudite eyes for a young child - and asked whether Mr. Cobblepot was here to help him find the man who was after him. 

Jim looked up at Alfred, who only gave him a look that said he had better answer the boy, and Alfred had better approve of his answer.

“Jim,” Oswald said with concern at Bruce’s words. “Are you in trouble?”

Jim gave Oswald a wry look, and figured with Bruce and Alfred here now, it was as good a time as any. 

“So your friend Nygma apparently has some kind of vendetta against me. Framed me for the murder of Officer Pinkney, which got me locked up in Blackgate. And now it looks like he knows about Galavan too, because IA got a tip from an anonymous caller and they’re reopening the investigation.”

Oswald’s grip on Jim’s arm got very tight at that.

“But Nygma was right about one thing,” Jim said with a sigh, turning to Alfred. His eyes landed on Selina. “I can’t just go to the cops. They’ll never believe me.”

“Cops, right?” Selina scoffed. “Jerks.”

He gave her a wry smile, but then the gears started turning in his head. He looked at Oswald, and remembered something.

“Nygma said he met you for the first time in the woods - that was around the time his girlfriend went missing.”

Jim set his lips in a grim line, thinking about it. “I think he was burying her - just like he was going to bury me.”

“Could you lead us to that spot, Mr. Cobblepot?” Bruce asked, interjecting. “You need to find the bodies, right?”

Oswald’s eyes widened, reaching for an answer, when Jim gets another idea.

“No, Nygma knows where she is. He’s going to lead us - and we’re going to catch him in the act.”

Selina raised an eyebrow, and Oswald caught onto the plan. 

“People have seen us together at the Wayne’s. News will travel - Selina can go to the police first thing in the morning,” Oswald said. “Call your partner, he’ll need to be ready when Ed moves.”

Jim looked at Oswald in mild surprise. He’s never doubted Oswald’s willingness to help, though he may have doubted the mobster’s motivations, but despite his old, cunning self shining through more and more by the minute, Jim couldn’t help but feel that now, and probably not for the first time, they were truly on the same side.

“You’ll catch him, Jim, they’ll find you innocent,” Oswald added, holding his gaze, and Jim felt so warm with affection he barely heard Selina’s ‘ugh, gross,’ before she ducked back through the curtains, and Bruce’s reluctant to follow footsteps leave. 

It felt like a vow, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, and Jim let himself bring his arm around to encircle Oswald yet again, and kiss him with an unvoiced promise he would be there for him always, that he would leave him never again.

☂️


	2. a teeny epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was reminded in a comment that we hadn't seen what happened to the van Dahls....so!

Jim washed, shaved, and dressed. Goodbye, prison scruff. He looked himself in the eye as he knotted his tie around his neck, glad to be a free man and reinstated detective once again. It’d been a satisfying moment, winning his innocence in the eyes of the law - first there was the ambush in the woods, where once Nygma took his gun he stopped to gloat. And oh, did he gloat, right within spitting distance of Captain Barnes and an entire fleet of officers. 

Then there was the review board, who in light of this outlandish scheme were only too happy to push his reinstatement through so as to save themselves more embarrassment. 

And clearly he wasn’t the only one enjoying his cleaned up look once again, if the way Oswald was eyeing him appreciatively from behind the widow van Dahl was any indication. 

“Oh, my,” she said, suddenly all pasted-on smile as she took in this surprise visit at the door. Her voice then dropped to a disturbingly sultry pitch. “How can I help you, officer?” 

“Detective,” he corrected her, as she moved aside to let him into the house.

Jim had spun a story of a missed connection. Of an unforgettable dance with one of the van Dahls, only to be swept apart from each other come the next waltz, and an untimely call back to the station left him with no time to exchange numbers. So he decided to pay an old fashioned visit in person. 

And good God, Oswald hadn’t been exaggerating when he detailed his pitiful existence at the estate. He had to pretend to pass by him without interest, but he wanted nothing more than to help him out of that soot stained apron and shake some spirit back into him, else tucking him under his arm and stealing him away from these monsters. Jim reminded himself it was just an act. 

He could have gotten a warrant, perhaps, with some finagling, but it would have soon alerted the van Dahls to the fact that they did not believe Elijah’s death a natural one, and in that time they might destroy crucial evidence.

So he gave Grace a smile - he wasn’t half as good an actor as Oswald, sadly, unless the part called for him standing on the other end of a gun - and accepted a drink, and she called her two children downstairs. 

“My condolences,” Jim said, “for your late father. I’ve heard your family spends much time alone in the estate, so you must have all been very close.”

Elijah van Dahl was obviously an uncomfortable topic, and it was clear the mother had poisoned her children to him, as the only one in the room who showed any genuine emotion over this sad memory was in fact Oswald, who was concealing, if Jim was correct, rage. He quickly left the room to busy himself in the kitchen.

Sasha and Charles flounced into the sitting room with a curtesy and the extending of hands and Jim awkwardly sat by as Grace rudely rang for Oswald to bring them a drink, and rang again, because that “lame-legged orphan made for such terrible help.”

Jim strained his smile as far as he could lest he opened his mouth and said - well, anything, and broke his cover. 

She rang him again, and complained about how slow he was, and Jim continued to ask about the circumstances of Elijah van Dahl’s death. He had heart problems, they confirmed, and Oswald had suspected Grace was switching out his pills. But they didn’t need the pills, because they had the decanter from which he drank before gasping his last breaths.

Which Oswald now procured, standing behind Grace’s two beautiful children. There was something not right about his smile, Grace noticed, and even Jim noted quietly that Oswald was enjoying this perhaps a little too much, and he should be ready to make arrests before (significant) bloodshed occurred. 

Jim and Grace’s own chairs faced Sasha and Charles, and they had the full view of Oswald’s machinations with the drink cart. 

Oswald poured Jim a drink, and one for Grace, and she relaxed visibly as she watched Oswald prepare them from untainted glasses. 

But once she had her drink in hand, she could only watch in horror as Oswald then poured poison into her children’s cups. And they accepted without a care of a glance back.

Jim was saying something, but Grace heard nothing but the ringing in her ears as she leapt forward and knocked the glasses out of their hands, and the drinks spilled to the antique rug with a fizz.

“It’s poison!” she yelled as she did, too fearful for her cunning wits now. Time seemed to slow as she looked up and saw Oswald wide-eyed and gasping at her, proclaiming, “Poison! But this was the brandy Father had, before - before he died!”

Too late Grace realized what she had just admitted to - it all passed in a blur as then she was handcuffed, and read her rights. Too late she realized her children didn’t know how to keep their mouth shut, and were making things worse.

“You were supposed to get rid of the poison after father died, Charles!” Sasha chastised, and Charles flailed claiming he couldn’t find the decanter in the aftermath. 

Jim only raised an eyebrow at how easy this all was.

“And you two are under arrest for conspiracy and being an accessory to murder,” he added, booking the trio and marching them out the door, where Harvey had a cop car waiting down the driveway and was just pulling in. 

And unlike Cinderella, there were no embraces or declarations of forgiveness as the step-siblings were taken away. 

Oswald wore a meanly satsified expression as he eyed them from the doorway, getting in an additional jab about how the house and estate were his now, as Father had intended to do before they committed their cruel deeds. 

“Will there be a fine?” Charles asked, confused as Harvey pushed his head down to fit into the back of the squad car.

“I’m afraid the fine for murder is time in prison,” Oswald answered cheerfully. Jim gave a wry twist of his lips.

“Yeah and I was just there - I don’t recommend it,” he added. 

It seemed that, sitting in the back of a police car like a common criminal, the three of them shoved together, reality finally came crashing down on Grace. The door slammed shut and not a moment after that she raged and shrieked and demanded her legion of lawyers, demanded their badge numbers for her to file a complaint, and demanded to be let free immediately, because it was obviously that lunatic of an orphan she had so graciously accepted into her home who had murdered Elijah because that’s what the Penguin was, a rapist and a murderer!

Except no one quite heard her, because outside the car, the Penguin was busy kissing his detective, looking forward to his happily ever after.


End file.
